Position-Tracking Map Tutorial

Table of Contents:

Introduction:

Notes:

• display map: This is the image that is displayed on the screen, edited in a graphics program
• game map: This is the world map that consists of tiles which you edit in RM2K

Simple Postition Tracker

1. Make your display map. It's easiest to make it on an exact scale -- one tile = one pixel.
   Then make your crosshair. It should be either a 3x3 or 5x5 pixel picture. 1x1 is ideal for positioning purposes but it's too small to see. ;-)
   It's probably best to make a dark world map and a light crosshair, or vice versa, for viewing purposes.
   Import both of these into your game using the Raw Materials Editor.
   
2. Anywhere on your game map, make an event. It should have the pink square (transparent) for a graphic.
   Priority is Common Char Below/Top.
   Event Start Condition is Parallel Process.
   The event is on the game's world map because that's the only place that the display map should appear.
   Now, in the event commands, you want:
   
   1. Show Picture. It's on the 2nd page of the event commands.
      Pick a number for it (1 is a good idea) and press the "..." button.
      Choose your display map. Make it partly transparent -- somewhere around 40-50%.
      Pick the map's coordinates. Remember that this is where the center of your map goes, so to have it on the top left of the screen the coordinates should be 1/2 the width for X and 1/2 the height for Y.
      Magnification should be 100%, Tranparency Color should be "Stir."
      
   2. Set Variable. It's on the first page of the event commands.
      Pick a variable, and name it "MapCursorX" or something like that.
      Choose "Set" from the middle set of options and "Character," "Hero," "X coordinate" from the last set.
      
   3. Repeat above, except choose a new variable for "MapCursorY" and use "Character," "Hero," "Y coordinate"
      
   4. Show Picture. Pick another number for the picture.
      Choose your cursor/crosshair. Make it partly transparent. Again, about 50% should do it.
      For position, use your two variables -- MapCursorX for the X coordinate and MapCursorY for the Y coordinate. Don't touch anything else.
      
   5. Wait. It's on the second page. Put in a 5 so it'll refresh every half-second.
      
   6. Erase Picture. Also on the second page. First erase your cursor. (Picture 2)
      
   7. Erase Picture. Now erase your map. (Picture 1)
      

Map Item Activation of Position Tracker

1. Follow all the instructions for the simple position tracker above.
2. Go to the Items tab of the Database and create a new item. It should be of type "Switch." Name it whatever you want, but since this is going to be your map item, "Map" is a good name. Make sure that the "Field" box is checked. Put whatever you want in the "Use number of times" box, but "Limitless" is usually a good idea unless you want your map to disappear after a while.
3. For the switch, click on the "..." button and select a new switch. Name it "UseMap" or something like that.
4. Go to the Common Events tab of the Database and create a new common event. Call it "Use Map" or something like that. Set the "Event Start Condition" to "Parallel Process" and check the box. Choose the switch you just made, "UseMap." This should have the following event commands:
   1. Erase Picture. This should erase your cursor image.
   2. Erase Picture. This should erase your map image.
   3. Change Switch. For this, use the "..." button to select and make a new switch. Call it "ShowMap" or something like that. Set it to ON/OFF trigger.
   4. Change Switch. For this one, turn OFF your switch UseMap.
5. Now go to the event you made in step 1. Check one of the boxes labelled "Switch" under "Event Condition" and choose your "ShowMap" switch.

Maps With Scale 1 pixel = More Than 1 Tile

1. Make your display map with a scale of 1 pixel = more than 1 tile. Also make your crosshair, but it can still be a 3x3 or 5x5 pixel image.

   Technically, the scale here is 1 x 1 pixels = n x n tiles, but since a pixel is a square anyway it's usually shown as 1 pixel = some number of tiles. Obviously, the number of tiles in the width or height of your game map must be divisible by whatever number you use for n, or else you're going to wind up with some fractions of pixels. For example, you can use 1x1 pixels = 2x2 tiles for a 200x200 tile map, but you can also use that scale for a 200x400 tile map and end up with a rectangle.

2. Follow steps 2-3 for the simple position tracker.
3. In step 2b of the simple tracker, you create and set the variable "MapCursorX." Now create a new "Change Variable" command. Choose "MapCursorX" again.
   Set the Operation to "/" (division) and the Operand to Set n, where n is the value I discussed above. To continue my 200x200 tile map example, I would put a "2" here.
4. Repeat this with the variable "MapCursorY."

Maps With Scale 1 tile = More Than 1 Pixel

1. Make your crosshair. Create your display map with a scale of 1 tile = more than 1 pixel.

   Technically, the scale here is 1 x 1 tiles = n x n pixels, but since a tile is a square anyway it's usually shown as 1 tile = some number of pixels. Obviously, the number of pixels in the width or height of your display map must be divisible by whatever number you use for n, or else you're going to wind up with fractions of tiles displayed. For example, you can use 1x1 tiles = 2x2 pixels for a 50x50 tile map to display it as a 100x100 pixel map.

2. Follow steps 2-3 for the simple position tracker.
3. After step 2b, where you set "MapCursorX," add a new "Change Variable" command for the same variable.
   Set the Operation to "*" (multiplication) and the Operand to Set n, where n is the value above. To continue my 50x50 tile map example, I would put a "2" here.
4. Add another "Change Variable" command for "MapCursorX."
   Set the Operation to "-" (subtraction) and the Operand to Set n/2. If n is odd, you can round up or down as you please. In my 50x50 tile map, I would put a "1" here.
5. Repeat steps 2-3 for the variable "MapCursorY."

Maps Not Positioned in the Upper-Left Corner

1. Decide where you want your map to be. The farthest you can put it from the upper-left corner is, of course, the bottom-right corner. You can actually put it anywhere you like on the screen, but for now I'll use the bottom-right corner and the center, since those are the most likely places to display the map.
   If you don't want to put the display in the bottom-right corner, then use your X- and Y-coordinates for the upper-left corner of the display instead of mine.
2. Figure out what the X- and Y- coordinates for the center of the display are.You can either pick likely coordinates or calculate them from where you want the upper-left or bottom-right corner of your map.
   
   The coordinates of the screen's center are 160 for X and 120 for Y.
   To calculate from the upper-left coordinates of the display, add 1/2 of the map's width to the X-coordinate and 1/2 of the map's height to the Y-coordinate.
   To calculate from the bottom-right coordinates of the display, subract the map's width from the X-coordinate and the map's height from the Y-coordinate.
   The coordinates of the bottom-right corner of the screen are 320 for X and 240 for Y.
3. Follow the directions for the simple position tracker.
4. In step 2a, where you use the "Show Picture" command to put the display map on screen, put the center coordinates you worked out in the above step.
5. After step 2b, where you set the variable "MapCursorX," add another "Change Variable" command.
   Choose "MapCursorX," Operation "+" (addition), and make Operand "Set" to the X-coordinate of the upper-left corner.
   If you're also using a map that's not on a scale of 1 pixel = 1 tile, then make sure that this add operation is after the division or multiplication.
   
6. Do the same for MapCursorY, but use the Y-coordinate of the upper-left corner instead.

Creating the Images (Map and Crosshair)

The Hard Way:

1. Go to your paint program. Create a new document of the desired height and width, depending on the number of tiles in your game map and the scale you want the map at.
2. Zoom in. 600%-800% should be good enough to see the individual pixels. If you can, turn on a grid overlay to make it easier to see the pixels.
3. Okay, now decide what you want to show on your map. Do you just want a simple map that shows land and sea, one that also shows mountains, one that shows all your different terrain types, something that just shows key spots, or something else? Pick colors for all the different things you want to show -- it could just be dark gray for sea and lighter gray for land, with a black dot for a key location. Or you could use a different color for every kind of tile you used in your game map. Don't go over 256 colors.
4. Now, draw your map. Where a tile is sea in your game map, paint the corresponding pixel the color for sea. And so on. As I said, this is the painstaking way.
5. When you're done, save the file. If you're using Paint, just save it as a BMP file. In Photoshop, go to Image:Mode:Indexed Color, accept its settings, and Save As PNG. If you're using something else, do whatever you usually do to your images before putting them into RM2K.

The Easy Way

1. Open RM2K. Go to either of the layer editing modes (press F5 or F6). Click the button on the left side of the screen for "Select." Now zoom the map out to 1/8, the smallest setting. Hopefully you'll get all of the map in.
2. Press the Print Screen button. It's usually above the "Insert" button of a keyboard. Or if you have a screen capture program, use that instead.
3. Open your graphics program. Create a new document the size of your screen resolution.
4. Go to Edit:Paste to paste the contents of the clipboard. Or do whatever you need to do with your screen capture program to put the screenshot into a file in a graphics program.
5. Either use the Crop function of your graphics program to remove the parts of the screen that are not your map, or select the section that is your map and copy-paste it into a new document of the appropriate size.

   If your map didn't fit into the display even at 1/8 zoom, you'll have to "stitch" it together from pieces. Scroll to the upper-left corner of your map. Do steps 3-5 above. Scroll one screen's worth right on your map. What I mean is to scroll horizontally to the right until the entire portion being displayed is new. Then do steps 3-5 above. If necessary, save the first section of the map and close it to make a new document. Keep doing the step above until you reach the right end of the map. Now you have the first row done. Then scroll all the way back to the left edge, and scroll down one screen's worth. Repeat steps b and c above. This will get you the second row. Repeat, getting all the rows of your document. When you're done you'll have a bunch of files. Create a new document that's the size of the files you combined. Copy and paste the various files together, positioning them in the right places. If there were overlaps in the screen captures, overlap the files there now, so that there are no extra parts to the map.

6. Now re-size your image so that its dimensions are the ones you want for your display map, depending on how many tiles there are and whether or not it will be zoomed in.
   If you like, you can now take a brush tool and paint over the sections of the map in the colors you want.
7. Save your image, just like in the hard way above.